Searchers won't give up hope

Sep. 5, 2007

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Authorities are putting no time limits on the search of missing millionaire pilot Steve Fossett.“We just keep coming back I don’t see anything in the foreseeable future that will cause us to ramp down the search effort,” Nevada Civil Air Patrol Maj. Cynthia Ryan said today.Fossett, whose lifetime accomplishments include swimming the English Channel and being the first person to fly a balloon non-stop around the world, has been missing since Monday when he flew from Barron Hilton’s ranch near Yerington.When asked how long Fossett, 63, could survive, Ryan replied: “Without serious injury, if he could find water, he could go on for a couple of weeks.”Earlier in the day, Ryan emphasized this is still a rescue effort.“This man has a wonderful history of being able to walk out on his own,” Ryan said. “He has done it more than once.”The search today continued to focus on a 600-square-mile area between Yerington and Bishop, Calif. A crew found a crash site and initially thought it might be Fossett’s plane, but it turned out to be an unrecorded crash site from a different aircraft. That could have prompted one false media report in California that Fossett had not survived a crash.“We have not found him,” Ryan said. “We have not found an airplane.”The search for Fossett turned more high-technology today.The Utah Civil Air Patrol sent an Archer multi-spectral imaging system on an airplane that allowed search crews to program specifics about colors and shapes to search for among the terrain of western Nevada and eastern California. It used a computer to help look for Fossett’s single-engine, two-seat Citabria Super Decathlon among the trees, bushes and boulders.“It goes, ‘Not that. Not that. Yes, that matches the search parameters,’” Ryan said.That’s in addition to the Nevada Air National Guard infrared technology being used on a C-130 Hercules assisting in the search.Ten aircraft — three helicopters and seven fixed-wing — searched today for Fossett, who reportedly was scouting dry lake beds for another attempt at a land speed record. Ryan said fewer crews available than the 14 in use Tuesday.Ryan could only speculate on what may have caused Fossett’s disappearance. He had a global positioning system on the plane so she doesn’t think he got lost.“I think a guy who has piloted balloons around the world is unlikely to get lost in a small area like that,” she said.